12. SQUALO
SQUALO
Ifollowed her, sneaking through the hallways like I didn’t own the yacht.
I watched her slip into bed and curl onto her side.
She’d left the door slightly open behind her, just enough for me to notice she was only one there.
She hugged the pillow to her chest before the first tear escaped, then another, until she let herself cry.
I’d bet anything I was the reason. I knew the tears she’d cried over me through the years could fill the Adriatic Sea.
“Stalker much?” Isabella said behind my back.
I jumped, my heart lurching. Turning around, I faced her.
“Never. I just wanted to make sure she was in bed, safe.”
“Right.” she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Why are you here?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“You told me to wait in the master suite, remember?”
“Now that I think about it, it was a bad plan,” I said.
“Yes, but since we’re here, let’s not waste each other’s time.
” She sat down in the middle of the stairs, then patted the carpet beside her, inviting me to sit.
“I never liked you, and I don’t want to be friends,” she began, making my brow furrow and the corner of my lip twitch in confusion.
“But I think you can help us find Gianni.”
“Good.” I chuckled. “The feeling is mutual.”
“Jokes aside,” she said, “Someone tried to kill me tonight. And I’m afraid the same person tried to do the same to Gianni.”
My jaw clenched. Every muscle in my body went still as I focused on every word she said.
“Why would they do that?”
She pressed her lips together. Her lower lip trembled.
“Gianni and I saw something.”
I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath.
“Let’s talk in my suite.”
She got up and followed me to the upper deck. Neither of us said a word. Only the soft sound of our footsteps could be heard in the empty hallways.
I never thought she was a bad person. I just didn’t trust her. I knew she was good for Gianni, but being good for someone’s heart didn’t always mean you were good for their mind.
He was going crazy with her. He had to constantly tell her where he was and what he was doing. If he was even a minute late, she’d lecture him like she was his mother instead of his girlfriend.
I told him more than once that it wasn’t normal, but he felt obligated to stay with her because she’d saved him when he was using. She was the reason he got clean.
For that, I had to give her credit. Not even the best facilities my father paid for had managed to do what she did.
I guess everyone sees love differently, and every love story has its toxic side.
After all, love is the poison that curses the human heart. Maybe that’s why mine is filled with hate.
She stopped at the door and waited for me to open it. The moment we stepped inside, before I even had the chance to close it, I raised my voice.
“Talk.”
She walked over to the sofa. Her gaze stayed fixed on the carpet in front of my bed while her fingers dug into the fabric beneath them. She hesitated, drawing in a shaky breath.
“We saw…” She swallowed hard. “We saw your father and Andrea Bianchi loading the yacht with stolen art and plastic bags filled with white powder.”
She turned to me, her words spilling over one another as she rushed to explain.
“We were at the cliffs, diving, and then Gianni found this map…”
“What the fuck, Isabella?” I shouted, my hands flying to my head. “Are you saying you two got involved with drugs?”
“No, no.” She shook her hands in front of her. “But they know we saw them.”
My father being involved with Andrea Bianchi wasn’t a surprise. They’d known each other for years, working together with my mother at the art gallery. But my father dealing with drugs, knowing his own brother had died from an overdose, was a shock.
Then again, when it came to my father, nothing should have surprised me anymore.
“Oliver.” She stood up. “Please, don’t mention any of this to Gabby. She has enough on her plate already, and I don’t want her worrying that Gianni started using again.”
“Did he?” I shouted.
“He came to me the same night he disappeared. His pupils were dilated, and his energy…” She swallowed. “I think he started again.”
She rushed on before I could say anything.
“He kept rambling about finding a ship that sank in 1809 near the Siren Islands, Li Galli. I even tried to tell Gabby the story the night before we got here, but she had no idea what I was talking about.”
I sat down on the bed. My hands ran through my hair before sliding down my face, burying it in my palms.
Silence settled between us. Then I heard a quiet sniffle.
When I finally looked up, she was hurriedly wiping away her tears.
She sniffed again, her brown eyes meeting mine.
“I kicked him out.” She closed her eyes. “I told him not to come back until he was sober.”
“Fuck.” I let out a long breath.
“I think that’s when he went to see my father,” I said. “Only instead of asking to borrow the yacht, he asked about the map and the ship. I’d bet on it.”
She stepped closer.
“My uncle had a case open about the stolen art, but he closed it after Annie died.”
“He never told me.” Isabella wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing at the sleeves. “But it makes me wonder… did she really jump, or was she pushed?”
“Maybe we should let the dead stay buried, Isabella,” I said. “If Gianni disappeared because of this, then both you and Gabriella could be in danger.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Her hands flew into the air before she jabbed a finger at her chest. “I almost died, remember?”
“Why did you say you were pushed?” I raised a brow. “We saw you jump.”
“I lost my balance.”
“Nah.” I chuckled. “I think you saw someone, and you didn’t want to be recognized.”
“Think what you want,” she snapped. “Maybe I jumped because I was fucking afraid he’d push me overboard.”
She lifted her chin, brushed past me, and headed for the door.
“Gianni had suspicions you were seeing someone behind his back,” I shouted after her. “Was it Luca?”
“Fuck off,” she snapped. “I would never do that to Gianni.”
“Then why did he try to kill you?” I asked.
She turned, the color draining from her face. “Dante’s brother tried to kill me?”
“We saw him on the surveillance footage. And I know what Luca looks like.”
She leaned against the doorframe, twisting her butterfly necklace between her fingers as she clutched it. “I went to find him that afternoon, and he never boarded the yacht, Oliver,” she said. “I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t him.”
I turned away and walked to the window, holding myself against the metal frame. “What does he look like?”
“Just like Dante,” she said. “They’re twins. The only difference is Luca has blond hair.”
I scoffed. “Fuck.” My fist slammed into the metal bar with a dull clang. “Go,” I said. “I have to figure out what the hell is going on.”
She opened the door and slipped out, closing it quietly behind her.
I looked down at the sun deck. George and the captain stood together, cigarettes between their fingers, laughing as though nothing had happened.
My gaze drifted to the rolling waves, the sea carrying fragments of memory that surfaced one after another. I closed my eyes, trying to push them away.
Only one stayed.
The night of the Light Festival in 2001.
I saw her that night, running toward the sea with her best friend, Annie.
Glitter still clung to her hair from the festival.
Blue eye shadow smeared across her eyelids, while rhinestones shaped into tiny stars sparkled at the corners of her eyes.
Some were coming loose, melting down her skin and making it look as though she’d been crying stardust.
Her pink lips curled into a smile. On anyone else, that shade of blue would have looked clownish. But on her? She was a goddamn star.
If she hadn’t been drunk, she would’ve told me how much she hated my guts—how disgusted she was by my very presence. But tonight, thanks to the two shots of tequila Gianni had talked her into taking, she smiled at me.
And for a moment, I saw a new color in her eyes—deep ocean blue, like the sea at night: beautiful enough to make you forget it could drown you. I wanted to lose myself in that color, to sink beneath it and never come back up.
But all I could do was admire it from afar.
“Man, are you alright?” Gianni asked, brushing a hand over the top of my head and ruffling my hair.
“I’m drunk,” I chuckled, my eyes half-lidded.
Only a drunk man could think like this.
My stomach twisted into knots, sending everything I’d eaten before drinking creeping back up my throat.
“Whoa,” Gianni shouted.
A laugh came behind us, and I knew it instantly, it was Nikki.
She’d been obsessed with me ever since I got to the Amalfi Coast. I’d seen her leave Annie and Gabby just five minutes ago, but I hadn’t expected her to make her way over to Gianni and me.
She was trouble.
“I’ll take care of him,” she said, slipping her arms around my neck. She cupped my face and squeezed my cheeks between her thin fingers.
“No,” I managed to mumble through my squashed lips.
She ignored me.
Hooking an arm around my waist, she pulled me upright until I was unsteady on my feet. I looked at Gianni, silently mouthing, Help.
He only threw his hands in the air and laughed.
Nikki wanted to fuck. But I wasn’t drunk enough to let that happen, and I was already close to wasted.
She was one of those one-night stands who just couldn’t let go. Most girls could handle rejection. Nikki chased until I eventually gave in.
And I had.
I exhaled and let myself lean against her as she guided me toward Annie’s car. She leaned back against the hood, then slowly stretched out across it, spreading her legs just enough while dangling the key between her fingers.
I smiled, unzipped my pants, and stepped closer until my face hovered inches from hers.
She tilted her chin up, waiting for the kiss she wanted so badly.
Instead, I plucked the keys from her hand, slipped past her, and climbed into the car and locked the door.
Leaning over the back seat, I reached for my backpack.
She turned around, confused. Her lips parted, her brows knitted together, her whole expression screaming, What the fuck just happened?
I pulled an old cassette player from my backpack, slid in the tape with the ten songs I’d recorded so I could listen to them on repeat, put on my headphones, and pressed play.
She stormed over and banged on the window, demanding I let her in, but I ignored her. Closing my eyes, I turned on Yellow by Coldplay.
“I can’t hear you,” I shouted, tapping one ear cup.
The wind kept tossing her pink hair across her face, hiding some of the anger burning there as she continued pounding on the poor old Volkswagen, Annie could barely afford to keep running.
Meanwhile, I sat inside, singing along with Coldplay.
My head moved to the beat from side to side. My fingers snapped to the rhythm while my hips rocked in the seat.
“I drew a line, I drew a line for you… Oh, what a thing to do… And it was all yellow…”
My eyes stayed closed. Her shadow still blocked the soft glow of the streetlight pouring through the window.
When the light finally reached my face again, I cracked one eye open and watched her stomp away before breaking into a run toward town.
My hand settled against my chest as I let out a long breath. I lowered my headphones and slowly turned toward the window.
A loud bang exploded against the glass.
I yelped.
Gianni stood outside, doubled over with laughter.
“You scream like a girl,” he said, clutching his stomach as he stepped back.
I grabbed the window handle and rolled it around, trying to crank the window down. It only opened halfway, so I squeezed half my face through the gap.
“You’re an ass.”
“Never sing again,” he said, stepping closer. “And get out of that car before my sister and Annie come back and hang you by your balls from the nearest power line.”
He had a point.
I took the key from my lap, which I hadn’t even bothered to put in the ignition, then reached over and lifted the little lock pin on the door. The lock clicked open.
As I climbed out, the cassette player slipped off the seat and hit the floor. The cassette popped out.
“Fuck.”
I crouched down and reached under the seat, feeling around with both hands, but found nothing.
“Can’t you just get another one?” Gianni asked, grabbing the back of my shirt to keep me from falling headfirst into the car.
“It’s kind of important,” I muttered, sweeping my hand deeper beneath the seat, searching every corner.
Nothing.
It was impossible to find anything. Annie was one of those hoarders who kept everything in her car. Makeup, clothes, handbags stuffed with who knew what. You know… girl stuff.
“Fuck it,” I sighed.
I snapped the cassette player shut, stuffed it and my headphones back into my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and closed the car door.
“They’re waiting for us down there,” Gianni said. “Annie wants us to do the wishes this year too.”
“Nah,” I said. “I’ll skip it.”
He shoved my arm.
“You can wish for a bigger dick,” he laughed.
I raised an eyebrow.
“I already got a good one.”
“That’s what he said.”
He burst into another fit of laughter, still throwing jabs my way as we followed the narrow trail down toward the beach.
Annie stood by the cliffs, leaning against a large rock with the waves washing over her feet. She lowered a bottle with a message inside into the water, then closed her eyes.
Fireworks burst overhead, scattering thousands of colors across the sea.
She walked back to Gabriella, who had her thin white sweater on.
It was three sizes too big, the sleeves swallowing her hands.
She hugged herself, her hands resting on her arms, while the sweater slipped from one shoulder, revealing the bare skin beneath.
The fireworks flickered in her eyes as she looked at Annie and smiled. She totally ignored Gianni and me.
He handed me a piece of paper and a pen without a word. Then he sat down on the pebbles and started writing his wishes. Greedy as always, he wrote ten numbers first before trying to fit in the wishes. I sat beside him and looked toward Gabriella. She wasn’t writing hers.
Is she skipping it this year?
I could barely hold the pen and paper. Everything blurred together. I was too drunk to write anything.
So I wrote only a few words.
I wish I could be happy.
I rolled the paper, slipped it into the bottle, then stood beside Gianni and tossed it into the sea.
“You’re supposed to close it!” he shouted after me. “1Testa di cazzo!“
The girls laughed, and I lay back on the pebbles, staring up at the stars.
I wish I could be happy.
Because only a happy man doesn’t carry a heart full of hate and regret. Only a happy man can forgive. And I was still a sad man who couldn’t forgive. I couldn’t forget. I just took whatever stood in my path.
1. Dickhead